Kid Rock’s 20-Foot Butt Bar Sign Gets Approved in Nashville

Kid Rock has a bar that is — perhaps not so tastefully — named Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse, which opened in Nashville last year. While the name of the bar may be questionable, what has caused even more discussion is the sign for the establishment, which is 20 feet high and features a woman's rear end prominently as part of the design.

The local government needed to give permission for the sign. According to the Tennessean, this was handily approved by a vote of 27-3. However, there was discussion about the sign's, uh, message — and the vibe it brings to Nashville tourism overall.

As councilwoman Kathleen Murphy, who voted no, explained, “We’ve worked very hard as a city to become somewhere that is a tourist destination, an ‘It’ city,’ somewhere that is family friendly.”

Her opinion? Rock's sign “crosses the line.” She added, "I want us to consider what we want Nashville to look like."

Concerns about First Amendment protections swirled in the discussion. "If a local government decides to issue regulations that would constrain the contents of a sign, it has to have a specific governmental interest that it is protecting," said Metro Council attorney Mike Jameson. "Prohibitions on purian interests or vulgarity has been deemed to be a legitimate government interest but it is fraught with peril in defining what is obscene."

In the end, Rock will have his butt sign, but the Michigan native has still been making up-and-down waves in his part-time adopted hometown of Nashville. He garnered praise for paying off a huge amount of Walmart layaway accounts in December, but was ousted as grand marshal for the 2018 Nashville Christmas Parade due to making inappropriate comments about The View host Joy Behar.